Complete in Christby Bob GeorgeHARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERSCopyright © 1994 by Bob George Contents
1The Two Big IssuesJesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10: 10). Yet many professing Christians today are saying, “There is nothing abundant about my life. I know my sins are forgiven and I am going to heaven, but what about today? I still experience doubts, fears, frustrations, and defeat. Surely there must be something more to this Christian life!” The solution to this dilemma can best be understood through a closer look at Romans 5: 10: “If, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His life!” The good news of the gospel is not just that Christ came to die for you, but that He came to give His life to you. There is no more important fact in the Christian experience than the profound truth that Christ lives in you. Misunderstanding this spiritual truth enslaves many Christians to the impossible task of trying to live the Christian life. The inevitable failure of such attempts brings them to the practical conclusion that Christianity does not work. This lack of emphasis on the living Christ may explain why there is such a great contrast between the church of Jesus Christ today and His church of the first century. In J. B. Phillips’ introduction to Letters to Young Churches he states:
Time and time again, as I speak with people on our daily live radio program “People to People,” I hear individuals whose lives are torn apart although they are absolutely confident that they are going to heaven when they die. “I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior when I was 12 years old,” they often say. What they mean is “I accepted Christ for what He did for me.” However, when I ask if they understand the living Christ Himself in them, there is dead silence. In spite of years of failure to experience the abundant life that Jesus provided, these people still declare, “I’ll live the Christian life if it kills me!” To this I reply, “You can be sure it will!” Many of us simply have not come to grips with the truth that it is not hard to live the Christian life… it is impossible! Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). If Jesus is God (which He most certainly is), and God said it is truth that sets us free, then it is truth that sets us free! If it is truth that sets us free, what is the only thing that puts us in bondage? The answer is obvious: It is error, lies, or simple ignorance. The Millionaire Who Lived in PovertyA good illustration of the results of a lack of spiritual knowledge is seen in the true story of a west Texas farmer by the name of Yates. Mr. Yates owned a lot of undeveloped land on which he raised sheep, but he lived in poverty. It was during the Depression years, and he was having difficulty even feeding and clothing his family. As Mr. Yates was facing inevitable bankruptcy, an oil company suddenly approached him and requested permission to drill for oil on his land. Reasoning that he had little to lose, Mr. Yates gave them permission. The oil company began drilling and discovered the largest oil deposit at that time on the North American continent, a deposit which produced 80,000 barrels of oil a day! At that time oil was selling for about three dollars per barrel. Overnight Mr. Yates became a millionaire. The amazing thing about this incident, though, was that Mr. Yates had been a millionaire ever since he first signed the papers on the land; he just hadn’t known it! We are told in 2 Peter 1:3 that “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and goodness.” Paul wrote as well, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). The problem with most Christians is that, like Mr. Yates, we are unaware of the incredible riches that we already have in Christ. In the following pages I would like to share some of the biblical truths that will set you free as you grow in the knowledge of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Salvation Encompasses Two IssuesIf I may use an unusual illustration, let us suppose that a man has died of a disease. If you had the power to restore the man, how many problems would you have to cure? The answer is two. You would have to raise him to life (the cure for death), but you would also have to deal with the disease that killed him. Look at it this way: Would it make any sense to cure his disease if you couldn’t raise him to life? No, you would just have a “healthy dead man” as a result. On the other hand, would it make sense to raise him to life if you could not cure his disease? No, because the disease would only kill him again. You could only truly restore the man by curing both problems. In the same way, for mankind to be saved spiritually, there were two issues that God had to address: first, man’s state of guilt through sin (the disease); second, the wages of sin, man’s spiritual state of death (the result of the disease). Unless both of these issues were dealt with, mankind could not be totally saved. To deal with the sin issue alone would leave mankind nothing more than a race of forgiven dead men. On the other hand, to raise people from the dead spiritually without putting away their sins (curing the disease) would doom them to dying again the first time they sinned, for “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The result would be what I call “Dracula theology”: a person’s existence would go back and forth, dead then alive, dead then alive, over and over. Never could he possess what the Bible calls eternal life. It is only as we hold the knowledge of both these issues that the New Testament will make sense to us. As strange as it seems to our ears the first time we hear it, it is biblically true that we are not merely saved by the death of Christ. We are saved by the resurrected life of Christ! This is why Romans 5:10 says, “If, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!” God’s solution to the sin issue was the cross; His solution to the life-and-death issue was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Finality of Christ’s Work on the CrossWhen we see that the goal of salvation is raising people from the dead and restoring them to a relationship with God, it becomes obvious that our sins must be taken away once and for all. Otherwise, the first time we sinned following our acceptance of Christ, we would die again. The wages of sin always was, always is, and always will be, death! That is, unless we are freed from that law through a higher law. Though the pull of gravity is continual, you can overcome the law of gravity through applying the law of aerodynamics in an airplane. In a similar way, Paul describes our escape from the law of death through taking advantage of a higher spiritual law: “Through Jesus Christ the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Therefore, in order to set us free from the sin issue, here is what the New Testament teaches. 1. Jesus Christ came to take away the sin of the world once and for all. When John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching, He said to his disciples, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). “By [God’s] will we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:10-12). Under the law, the sin issue could never be put away, “because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). At best, the animal sacrifices provided an object for the worshiper’s faith and a place to transfer his guilt. The sacrifices were, at the time, God’s ordained way to cover sins until they could be truly dealt with at some future time. Keep in mind, however, that no Old Testament believer had the blessing of looking back to a completed work. He could receive forgiveness up to date, but the next day his sins began adding up again, demanding another sacrifice. To make as clear as possible the absolute finality of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, the writer of Hebrews contrasts the sacrifice of Christ against those continual sacrifices offered by the priests under the Mosaic law. In the first verse of Hebrews 10 he asserts that the rituals of the law were only pictures of the reality that would someday be fulfilled by Christ and His completed work on the cross:
In contrast to the Old Covenant priests, whose work was never done, we see Jesus Christ seated at the Father’s right hand. Why is He seated? Because “It is finished!” (John 19:30). The sin issue has been dealt with once and for all, and Christ has paid it all! The writer of Hebrews reaches the climax of his argument in 10:14: “Because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Then, in Hebrews 10:18 is the conclusion: “Where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.” Jesus Christ has done it all! 2. As a result of Christ’s finished work on the cross, the world has been reconciled to God. “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19). Through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, reconciliation is said to have taken place. Reconciliation means that the cause of man’s alienation from God—his sins—has been taken away, and the way has been opened to return to a holy, loving God. Therefore nothing stands between any person and eternal life but his or her own unbelief and rejection of God’s gift of salvation through the saving life of Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Christ’s finished work on the cross enables us to put away guilt and have confidence to draw near to God, as well as giving us assurance of our eternal destiny. But this alone is not salvation! It is only half the gospel. The cross was God’s way to clear the decks for the divine action of putting Himself back into mankind that is, the raising of dead people to life.
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